Victoria Truelove, 5, walks amid the millions of buttons contained in the Peoria Holocaust Memorial at The Shoppes at Grand Prairie. The 11 million buttons were collected to represent the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust and an additional five million victims. (DAVID ZALAZNIK/JOURNAL STAR FILE PHOTO)

How can the mind comprehend the slaughter of 11 million people?

The Peoria Holocaust Memorial uses the simple visual image of buttons. Since 2003, 11 million buttons have stood outside The Shoppes at Grand Prairie, commemorating the loss of 6 million Jews and 5 million others.

Launched in 2001, the project was coordinated by the Jewish Federation of Peoria. The organization picked buttons for several reasons, included their roundness representing the circle of life. Further, buttons were a part of clothes left behind at the gates of the concentration camps.

The two-year project involved the help of local schools, groups and volunteers who counted the buttons, which poured in from 49 states and five foreign countries. The buttons are encased in 18 glass columns in the shape of the Star of David. Eighteen is symbolic in Judaism for the word “chai,” which means life.

Right now, because of exposure to the elements, the memorial is undergoing rehab and cleaning. The memorial will be reinstalled later this year, though no date has been specified.

Israel, along with other some nations, observes Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day — which this year is April 16.